myrmepropagandistMar 11

When asked about the possibility of a draft Karoline Leavitt our White House Press Secretary gave an odd answer.

"It is not part of the current plan right now but the president again wisely keeps his options on the table."

Our president was given a medical deferment because of "bone spurs" when he faced the draft for the Vietnam War. Common among the children of the wealthy. 58,220 U.S. soldiers died in Vietnam War. The war killed well over a million people.

Show threadmyrmepropagandistMar 11

To produce the political will to have a war on that scale and a draft there would probably need to be a serious terror attack on the US.

Though I wonder, if 9/11 happened today would the same people who rallied to the US and felt bad for us do the same. Or would much of the world just shake their head as you might at a child who plays in the rock pile where you told them there were rattlesnakes?

And also the child is the biggest rattlesnake somehow. Metaphors suck.

Show threadmyrmepropagandistMar 11
All of this is so transparent to me it's giving me anxiety.
Show threadeirias
@futurebird Trump has dueling character flaws that are relevant to forecasting how long this war will last. On the one hand, he’s a thin-skinned sore loser and he won’t want to do anything that looks like admitting failure. On the other hand, he has a short attention span for anything that isn’t one of a few very specific ego protecting vendettas and I don’t think Iran is high on that list. On the third hand, he isn’t restrained at all by facts, so friends have pointed out there is nothing stopping him from just declaring victory and pulling out. I think that’s more likely than a draft.
Mar 11 at 10:08amWeb
Show threadProto Himbo EuropeanMar 11
@eirias @futurebird He's also very good at making money and consolidating power. I think he gets many things out of this war he's been trying to start for years. One of the biggest ones is that he gets emergency powers to do things he's been blocked from doing so far.
Show threadmyrmepropagandistMar 11

@guyjantic @eirias

But we need to be "at war" and they can't even make up their mind about that.

If there is a catastrophe that inspires the public to support the war more and congress backs? Then it might be made into a real "War(tm)" and then those powers become a problem.

Right now it's just a deadly mess.

Show threadInfrapink (he/his/him)Mar 11

@futurebird
Iran has long been one of Trump's bugbears. In November 2018, he unilaterally and without provocation reïmposed sanctions on Iran, even though Iran appeared to be keeping up their end of the bargain.

Then in January 2020, he had Qassem Solameini assassinated. This would have been the most important incident of 2020 if we hadn't all gone into lockdown a couple of months later.
@guyjantic @eirias

Show threadmyrmepropagandistMar 11

@Infrapink @guyjantic @eirias

I guess conservatives really don't think all of that "export the music and the junk food and the ideology won't matter" stuff works at all?

I think it works. Too well.

Show threadRaven667Mar 11

@eirias @futurebird i wonder if irans leaders are taking any lessons from the battle of minneapolis/st paul on how to wear down the regime without provoking escalating violence. Maybe keeping their military retaliation against the US partners in the region and local US bases will slow escalation and put pressure on the US to leave, but if they organized an action on the homeland that might provoke the opposite.

That said if the war goes out of control and the US invades, itll end just like vietnam because the iranian people will never accept foreign rule. I doubt they have much appetite for revolution against their government either, while they might be massively protesting iiuc they want democratic reform and incremental policy change, not a repeat of 1979.